2 comments:

It won't surprise you that I protest, Bobsta; in fact, I'm planning two separate posts in the next few days on my blog:

1. My Beefs with the Evangelical Left2. My Beefs with the Religious Right

I hope by so doing to tick people off across the spectrum...at any rate, as to this post of yours, courtesy of Jim Wallis, let me give you a foretaste of one of my beefs with the Evangelical Left:

The New England Patriots defense surrendered over 300 yards passing to Donovan McNabb in Super Bowl XXXIX, and 21 points. Question: what does that fact tell us about the outcome of the game, which is the real question, right (well, unless you play fantasy football…but that’s another issue, and a warped one at that)? I’ve just quoted a perfectly good fact, but taken alone, it tells us exactly nothing about the outcome of the game. The final score of the game is the context in which the above facts are meaningful, and as we all know, the Patriots scored 24 points. My point is that there is no need to react in anguish, if you are a Patriots fan, about such a context-less fact as I have stated, namely the passing yardage and total points scored by the Eagles. Why? Because this fact doesn’t tell the whole story. In fact, it doesn’t tell much of the story, really.What’s my point? The Evangelical Left—and liberals in general—tend to be great at giving us isolated facts. They’ll tell us that most of President Bush’s tax cuts go to the wealthiest 20 percent of Americans. Ooh…that sounds bad, especially in a culture in which envy is no longer a sin, but rather a good thing, stoked along as it is by liberals in the first place. The fact that the wealthiest Americans pay a huge share of the tax load—a higher percentage than the percentage of tax cuts coming their way—as well as the fact that the rich are taxed at a higher rate—somehow never comes into the equation. Telling some of the truth isn’t sufficient, and dealing in pithy catch-phrases isn’t helpful, unless the goal is to spread more heat than light…

See, that's my beef with the "facts" you've quoted, Bob; they may be TRUE enough, but do they really tell us anything ABSENT CONTEXT? What if the block grants are superfluous? What if the 48 educational programs that are being eliminated are inefficient and a waste of taxpayer money? What if the $355 million to programs that promote safe and drug-free schools is a terrible waste of money on ineffective or duplicated programs? Not to mention the fact that, contrary to Jim Wallis AND George W. Bush, one step in fixing education would be to cut off every last federal dime and abolishing the Department of Education.